If you look at the map, the Ottoman Empire ruled large areas of Europe, Middle East, North Africa and the Caucuses area for more than 600 years. At it is zenith in the 16th and 17th century there were more.

Even after such a long period of Ottoman rule, the disintegration of the empire led to some 45 new nations under the UN banner. This shows that the Ottoman administration did show respect for a tolerant society for all its citizens.

Today it isn't different in the current state of Turkey, all its citizens of all backgrounds are treated equal and with tolerance. In Athens today you cannot find one mosque where as in Turkey you can find churches, synagogues and temples in many areas and church bells are always ringing and thats how it should be.

Kopek007, there can't be any settlement with terrorists. If the Kurds are stupid enough to support terrorism, then they can go ahead. No problem. As Turkey is used to fight terrorism, and bury their soldiers, the Kurds who support terrorism and terrorists should get used to bury multiple figures of the terrorists. And stop crying about arrests of so-called acedemics; if they would have behaved as normal citizens nothing would have happened. That's the price of helping terrorists. If you are so concerned about those terrorists, nothing is holding you back in climbing those mountains and play a terrorist yourself. Good luck in catching a bullet from a Turkish soldier.

Greece cities like Tripoli and Pylos, Thessaloniki had huge Jewish and Muslim population but they are no more. What happened to them Freethinking?

I will give you a sense what happened to them:
Greek priest, named Phrantzes, was an eyewitness to the massacres and he wrote:
Women, wounded with musketballs and sabre-cuts, rushed to the sea, seeking to escape, and were deliberately shot. Mothers robbed of their clothes, with infants in their arms plunged into the sea to conceal themselves from shame, and they were them made a mark for inhuman riflemen. Greeks sized infants from their mother's breasts and dashed them against rocks. Children, three and four years old, were hurled living into the sea and left to drown. When the massacre was ended, the dead bodies washed ashore, or piled on the beach, threatened to cause a pestilence.

or about Tripoli

Based on eyewitness accounts and descriptions provided by these officers, William St. Clair wrote:
"Upwards of ten thousand Turks were put to death. Prisoners who were suspected of having concealed their money were tortured. Their arms and legs were cut off and they were slowly roasted over fires. Pregnant women were cut open, their heads cut off, and dogs' heads stuck between their legs. From Friday to Sunday the air was filled with the sound of screams... One Greek boasted that he personally killed ninety people. The Jewish colony was systematically tortured... For weeks afterwards starving Turkish children running helplessly about the ruins were being cut down and shot at by exultant Greeks... The wells were poisoned by the bodies that had been thrown in.

The Turks of Greece left few traces. They disappeared suddenly and finally in the spring of 1821 unmourned and unnoticed by the rest of the world....It was hard to believe then that Greece once contained a large population of Turkish descent, living in small communities all over the country, prosperous farmers, merchants, and officials, whose families had known no other home for hundreds of years...They were killed deliberately, without qualm or scruple, and there was no regrets either then or later.

"Kursato, Even today (since 1971 when it closed the Christian Seminary in Halki down), Turkey refuses to allow the Greek Orthodox Church to train its priests in Turkey. Religious freedom???"

This is a part I agree partly with you but there is movement in this area, I do not think it will take more time before this problem is solved and you should look to good things like the goverment has allowed religious minorities to give their property back that was taken illegally by the state or pay them the value of the property.

But then Freethinking you didn't answer my question:

In Turkey you can find churches, synagogues and temples in many regions and church bells are like always ringing besides mosques and thats how it should be.
However in Athens today you cannot find one mosque and Greece doesn't allow the small minority Turks in Eastern Thrace to choose their own religious leaders (mufti). Where is the Religious freedom???"

If history can teach:
1. Ottoman Turks ruled an area bigger than Europe for 500 years or more. Jews, Coptics and others thrived under benevolent rule. Racism was unknown.

2. European empires lasted 2 centuries or less. There was rampant racism. Cruelty to natives (point to extinction, see North America, South America and Australia). There were many revolts (freedom struggles).

"To his credit, Mr Erdogan was the first Muslim leader to tell Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to step down."

Better: To his credit, Mr Erdogan was the first NATO and European leader to tell Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak to step down.

While the vice president of the beacon of democracy and freedom in the world called him and I quote from the Economist:

"US vice-president Joe Biden told PBS NewsHour about Hosni Mubarak
I wont call him a dictator. "Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he's been very responsible one, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts."

and there is more

Appearing on Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN, Tony Blair said: "Where you stand on [Mubarak] depends on whether you've worked with him from the outside or on the inside. I have to say, he's been immensely courageous and a force for good."

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday called Hosni Mubarak a good friend and U.S. ally, and he urged the Obama administration to move cautiously as turmoil continued to shake that nation's government.

We all know the is west the champion of democracy & freedom in the world

"Kursato, Is this why those regions (Balkans) and MId-East-N Africa are the poorest in the region (excluding oil wealth) and most undemocratic???"

It is easy to give somebody else the guilt of today's problems of these regions than acknowledge your own mistakes or decisions. This must be the Greek way of thinking and we see the example of that today with Greece's financial problems.

It has almost been 100 years ago when Turkey lost its regions in the Middle East, more than 100 years it lost the last remnants of regions it had in the Balkans and Libya, more than 150 years it lost Greece and other Balkan territories, more than 300 years it lost Tunisia and Algeria and more than 350 years it lost Hungary, Moldavia, Western Ukraine and it goes on. Most of these regions had a decentralized rule than taking orders from the capital.

So Freethinking don't you think that after 100 years or more one should stop giving others the guilt of your own problems or backwardness and start looking to yourself?
South Korea has developed itself in just 50 years in to a advanced developed nation! The same could be said of Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Even Nordic nations like Finland or Iceland who very poor developed themselves in last than 100 years..

"Kursato, the 45 nations revolted against the Turks, fought for freedom, hence the disintegration of the empire!!!"

Not really, the Turks lost North Africa to colonialists like France (Tunisia, Algeria), Italy (Libya) and England (Cyprus, Egypte) and not to natives of these nations, they were happy for more than 300 years before the Europeans appeared.

The same could be said of the middle east. The Arab tribes (after stirred up by the British homosexual spy Lawrence) who fought against the Turks were the Wahhabi and South-Eastern Arab tribes who were not under Ottoman rule. There were more Arabs fighting on the side of the ottomans than there were against. It were the English, Indian, Australian and French soldiers who did the most work in the middle east during WW1.

In the Balkans it was the same, for more than hundreds of years, people were happy to live under ottoman rule, but when nationalism was on the rise in Europe and Russia got the message (Crimean war) from France, Britain and others that it would not be allowed to conquer the Balkans and Constantinople they started to stir up the people of the Balkans (hence Balkan wars) to weaken (Orlov Revolt) the ottoman empire.

"Kursato, after the Turkish pogroms against Greeks, Armenians, Jews, those places of worship are either empty of worshippers or have been turned into museums (or worst in areas such as eastern Turkey) - from 25% non-Moslem minorities in 1914, Turkey now has less than 1%!!!"

As a Greek you should know that there was a population exchange between Greece and Turkey after the independence war of Turkey. Most of the Jews of Turkey made aliyah to Israel or immigrated to Europe or America. Most of the Armenians immigrated to Argentina, France and to Armenia itself or died as consequences of events in WW1.

Is this why you made your first comment here? I think you are spreading propaganda.

By the way Colonial French town planners cleared many Ottoman buildings when they redesigned the Algiers waterfront and laid out what is now for example the place des Martyrs, but they left the Djemaa el-Djedid. Contrary to its name, the New Mosque, sometimes also called the Pêcherie Mosque, was built in 1660 on the site of an earlier Quranic school and paid for by public subscription.

Example
The Ketchaoua Mosque (Arabic: جامع كتشاوة‎, Djamaa Ketchaoua) is a mosque in Algiers, the capital of Algeria. It is located at the foot of the Casbah, which was built during the Ottoman rule in the 17th century, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The mosque was originally built in 1612. Later, in 1845, it was converted during French rule, to the Cathedral of St Philippe, which remained so until 1962

Behaving like a normal citizen means what 99% of the population does, whatever origin or etnicity they have. You are so blinded with your own perceived superiorty that you think there are many people like you. Well, you are mistaken. All the changes are because of Turkish citizens (of all ethnicities) demanding changes. Turkey is ready to make more democratic changes, but your terrorist friends are not in favour of that because it would mean the end of them, they will loose their priviliges of "being something", after all, if there was no terrorism what would you and your fellow terrorists do. You would be just an average con-man, with a lot of blood your hands. Kurds are my brothers, terrorist Kurds or any other origin are my enemies. As simple as that.

Well, tell me where you read that there is a country called kurdistan, and that Turkey occupied it. What drugs are you on? Hope not the ones that your fellow terrorists are smuggling.

Any dead terrorist, killed with whatever means possible is a blessing. You should be happy they are burried, mass grave is only for me to have a satisfactory grinn on my face, because it means many of those terrorists caught a nice bullet.

behaving like a normal citizen in Turkish dictionary means Kurds should behave as a mountain Turks, this is unacceptable and we will fight to our last drop against this racist oppressive state. it is not important is we win a war or not but the importance is the legacy..we forced Turks to recognise Kurds as a seperate nation at least on paper for now. we forced Turks to open Kurdish education in Universities,, so our blood has not gone in vain but urs have because ur state failed to assimilate Kurds.

Turkey not only not seeking political settlement with PKK but also terrorising Kurdish politicians who are members of Turkish parliament and Mayors and as well as other Kurdish academics. Turkish recent mass arrests is a simple example of state's terror applied on Kurds. Human right watch 2 days ago described Turkish justice system as flawed. see this linkhttp://www.hrw.org/news/2011/11/01/turkey-arrests-expose-flawed-justice-...

Shamefully, while EU and US were vocal about human right abuses of anti western regimes like Iran and Libya..they are not only silent on this Kurdish genocide but also helping Turks commit this crime faster..by giving Turkey the state of the art weapons which mostly will be used against civilian Kurds, as it happened in the past.

Under such circumstances Kurds have no option but to support PKK to defend them from this campaign.

Losing an argument is not easy, but at least have the dignity to not to make a fool of yourself by writing such replies like your last one. At least have the dignity to say "yeah, it didn't exist before, but we want to have a separate country". It doesn't help you your argument, but at least you have the balls to admit and correct yourself.

Bah, hate to get into civilized conversation with someone who isn't civilized, and act even act civilized.

PKK is a terror organisation and is clearly accepted by the EU and major states as such. It earns its money through illegal druck trafficing and other illegal activities. The acts of terror are predominantly done in regions where Kurds live in large numbers, that leads to the fact that these regions stay well below the development levels of the rest of the country. PKK by no means represents the hole of the kurds, since the majority of the kurds have voted for AKP "the current ruling Party in Turkey" in the last elections. Turks and Kurds have a history of over thousand years together. The majority of the Kurds live in West Turkey. A substantial proportion of the Kurds are married to Turks. Kurds currently hold some highest positions in the government as well as other state positions. A Kurd has currently all rights a Turk posesses.

Well mate, if they were really oppressive, nobody in Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Syria, Irak, Egypt, Armenia, Tunis, Algeria, etc would be able to speak their own language. They had plenty of time and opportunity to slaughter every single of them, or made sure they all spoke Turkish. Just that fact alone says a lot. Compare that with the British empire or Russian emipire to name a few.

Btw, nobody dreams of going back to ottoman time. That's just became a common statement of people who are afraid seing Turkey standing up again. Turkey has nothing against other countries, whether they were a Ottoman province in the pas or not.

Ah, these neo-Ottoman dreams! Just look at the map of the old empire and you’ll see "where people hate Turks the most" - openly or privately. Why? Because the Ottoman empire was one of the most destructive and oppressive in the history (regardless what is taught in Turkish schools). Even Soviets used to build, educate and create (from Eastern European countries to Afghanistan). Not to mention benign and civilized ones like Austro-Hungarian empire. Ottomans? Nothing but destruction and death. E.g. they ruled for several hundred years in Algeria - left anything behind? Nah - you can see the roads built by Romans centuries earlier - but anything built by the brave Ottomans would be hard to find... So there might be some talk about the influence of Turkey and wish of the disoriented Muslim world to go back to Ottoman times. There will be little "walk" to match, if any. Deep in their heart - nobody really likes Turks.

I am sorry but in Turkey as in almost all countries in the world (Except Belgium etc.)there is only one state language. The Kurds are free to speak their language if they wish to however nobody can expect from Turkey to change it state language. As somebody living in Germany it would be the most stupid thing in the world to argue with local german authorities that i want to do my business with them in Turkish. So be real!